Reviewed Work: Hok-lam Chan, Ming Taizu (r. 1368-98) and the Foundation of the Ming Dynasty in China

Abstract

This variorum collection of eight articles written by Hok-lam Chan, all focused on Zhu Yuanzhang and the early years of the dynasty he founded, comes to us in the same year as his passing. For anyone interested in the Ming dynasty, this will be an important collection of seminal works. One of the great assets of these Variorum Collected Studies volumes is that they bring together articles that may be difficult to obtain or little known outside of specialist circles. This volume is particularly helpful since it selects some of the most outstanding studies by Hok-lam Chan on the focused period of the early Ming. This is important because Hok-lam Chan’s erudition extended well beyond the Ming, and he was prodigious in his writing. Hok-lam Chan began his professional work of some forty-four years researching the non-Han conquest dynasties Jin and Yuan, only later moving into the Ming era. A brief scan through a recently published bibliography of Chan’s work indicates his catholic interests and enormous productivity; he authored some nine monographs and collections and ninety essays and articles in Chinese. His English-language contributions were equally prolific with twelve monographs or collections and fifty-eight essays and articles.